Ubisoft have finally confirmed the rumour that’s been doing the rounds for a few weeks: their new PC DRM will require an always-on Internet connection in order to play their games. And if the connection drops in the middle of a game, you’ll lose your progress. And if the servers go down, you won’t be able to play your game.

The new DRM will be in all announced Ubisoft PC games , including Assassin’s Creed II, Settlers VII, Splinter Cell Conviction, Silent Hunter 5, Prince of Persia and Ghost Recon. Ubisoft have confirmed that they “plan” to keep the servers up for all games in the future, but would not say they were “committed” to it.

Maybe the best way to defeat pirates is to ensure that no-one plays the PC version of your games?

Spike TV’s VGAs were also used as a platform for a few big game announcements and previews, some of which were expected, others not so much.

First up we’ll tackle some of the big announcements. On the music front there was an announcement trailer for Green Day Rock Band which featured the band themselves announcing the game. It looks quite early in the production process but that should be out some time next year. Then there was the big Star Wars announcement that was teased, which turned out to be The Force Unleashed II. The trailer featured the voices of Darth Vader and Yoda, plus a monster that makes a Rancor look like a puny little bug. Finally there was Arkham Asylum 2, with many more villains and plenty to make those that loved the first one (many many people) look forward to the sequel.

Now on to the previews. There were quite a few but we’ll just look at the big ones. First there was a trailer for the new Medal of Honor game which looked very impressive (and uncannily like COD: Modern Warfare). The visuals in the trailer are stunning to say the least, it’s definitely worth checking out. Next there was a trailer for the next Prince of Persia title: “The Forgotten Sands” which relaunches the story of “Sands of Time” which looks impressive. Crackdown 2 was another game shown off, and the from the trailer it certainly looks that the second game will be even more fun than the original (which was pretty damn fun).

Then there was the big one that was being talked about all over the internet leading up to the VGAs: Halo Reach. Bungie’s next (and possibly last for a while at least) game in the massively popular franchise made its debut at Spike’s ceremony, and it definitely impressed. With over 2 minutes of in-game engine footage, it will certainly help build excitement for that multiplayer beta coming next year. Make sure you keep your copy of Halo 3 ODST…